SU‐FF‐P‐02: Live Webcast and Video Archiving of Physics Seminars

Abstract

This presentation is to report and promote a webcasting and video archiving project at our cancer centre. We use a commercial system that requires special hardware to be installed in the presentation room, although a portable system is also available to videotape lectures but not for live webcast. The process begins with an email to the invited speaker, explaining the process and requesting his or her permission for the videotaping. Once the speaker agrees to it, the hospital's IS department is notified. All that is required of the IS staff is to enter the basic information on their computer, and then, at the actual time of the seminar, observe the speaker remotely on their TV monitor and adjust the video camera. The speaker image, the audio, together with the screen image of the speaker's presentation computer, will then be broadcast live on the web. To view the broadcast, intended audience will be sent a link in advance. The same link can be used to view the archived seminar afterwards. The archiving is done automatically, with no extra step for the IS staff. For the live webcast, some electronic form of remote audience participation, such as polling and sending questions by email, is available. We have decided that a speaker phone for audience to phone in would be most effective. The whole process is extremely easy to implement and also transparent to speakers, and the feedback has been highly positive. We are in the process of setting up an announcement for upcoming talks, as well as a catalog of archived talks. We encourage the Medical Physics community to participate in the project as audience. We would also like to promote this concept for other centres to set up similar facilities so that information and knowledge could be shared widely.